THE JESUS LIZARD

Duane Denison tells you everything you need to know about his gear, trying to sell Steve Howe a guitar in the Seventies and oh, yeah! - 2024's Rack, the Jesus Lizard's first new studio album in 26 years

- Gregory Adams

EACH TIME THE Jesus Lizard make their way back to the stage, it’s cause for celebration. Even so, when the hard bruising rock quartet dropped into Nashville’s Blue Room venue within the Third Man Records building this past June, the excitement was markedly different. Just the day before, the group — who’ve been maintaining an off-and-on reunion phase since 2008 — officially announced Rack, their first full-length release since the late Nineties. The show likewise featured the live debut of “Hide & Seek,” the record’s manically concussive lead-off track, which easily proves that the Jesus Lizard’s confrontational spirit remains intact nearly 40 years after the project first got off the ground.

And sure enough, guitarist Duane Denison confirms that sweat-slicked vocalist David Yow was once again surfing his way above their fans, his steel-toe-pointed cowboy boots kicking dangerously against the wind. Something has changed since that first era, though: Yow’s mostly fully clothed now.

“I think he starts off with a shirt these days — he’s not full Iggy — but the boots are still there. He still goes out in the crowd, maybe not quite as much; we worry about that,” Denison says from his Nashville home, alluding to the fact that all four members have now crossed well into their 60s. “But David Sims is playing his bass; to my left I’ve got Mac [McNeilly] playing drums. Everything’s dialed in, and away we go! The Jesus Lizard takes on a life of its own; I’m a cog in the machine here, but it’s good.”

To be sure, Denison has been keeping himself well-oiled this whole time. Since Jesus Lizard’s initial dissolution, he’s made five albums of fractiously experimental alt-metal as part of Tomahawk, alongside Mr. Bungle’s Mike Patton; he’s also backed country outlaw Hank Williams III and cut a loose-cannon solo on “Morning, Noon and Night” from Jack White’s